Barbarian Might of the Earth Fresh 70 Starter Build (Patch 2.7.6 / Season 29)

The Might of the Earth starter build keeps part of the leveling and fresh 70 build intact. You will still Leap as an opener in battles, but the 4-piece bonus also turns it into a primary damage dealer (especially potent with Lut Socks — read below on how to acquire them efficiently). In general, the Might of the Earth set enforces a very unique, rotation-based playstyle that takes some getting used to — but once you do, it becomes very comfortable and visually pleasing to execute.

The following build assumes you will assemble the build in 2-piece increments, similarly to how Haedrig's Gift would dole the set out. Haderig's Gift is a seasonal participation reward that gives you a full class-specific set as you complete Chapters II, III and IV of the Seasonal Journey (accessible via the leaf-shaped icon in the top right corner). The cadence of early natural character progression is also not too far off the listed strategy, so even if the set is not part of Haedrig's Gift, you can put the advice below to good use.

Active Skills
Cleave Reaping Swing Seismic Slam Rumble 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Threatening Shout Falter 3 Leap Iron Impact 4 Battle Rage Ferocity
Passive Skills
Rampage Ruthless No Escape Boon of Bul-Kathos

At the 2-piece Might of the Earth bonus, you still do not have any damage-related bonuses, so you can continue using as close to the leveling build as you choose to, or adapt it closer to the suggestions above. There is reasonable utility from the cooldown reset of Leap even at this point, especially if you lucked into Lut Socks from gambling or leveling. This setup will also get you used to the Fury dump of Seismic Slam Rumble, which is a staple of the Leapquake rotation later on. At this point you likely will not have good enough Cooldown Reduction to go without a generator and feel comfortable with the Earthquake downtime, so the suggestion is to drop it entirely. If you want to get a taste of the future of the set though, feel free to slot Earthquake Molten Fury in the place of one of the utility cooldowns like War Cry or Threatening Shout.

The dynamic at this point is to Leap into fights, getting the toughness buff from Iron Impact, debuffing foes with Threatening Shout Falter and and nuking them with Seismic Slam Rumble. Then, alternate between Fury generation with Cleave and Fury dumping with Seismic Slam until the monsters are dead, resetting the cooldown of Leap via the 2-piece bonus for the next fight. Buff up your toughness with War Cry, using either the extra Fury generation of Charge!, or the additional survivability of Veteran's Warning; strengthen your damage and speed with the utility combo of Battle Rage Ferocity.

One thing that might influence your build decisions early on is your crafting and/or gambling at level 1, especially if you followed the advice in the Beginner Seasonal Guide. Items you might have from leveling that significantly alter your setup are:

• Blade of the Tribes — If you lucked into crafting this with the Upgrade Rare recipe, you should have Earthquake Molten Fury in your build from the get-go, as it gives you a reliable way to circumvent its cooldown.
• Fury of the Vanished Peak — If you lucked into crafting this with the Upgrade Rare recipe, you should alter the Seismic Slam rune to Permafrost to make use of the weapon's innate Resource Cost Reduction powers. Also consider going for a Seismic Slam Might of the Earth build in general — this is a very powerful variation in its own right, and we have a whole guide for it.
• Bracers of Destruction — If you lucked into gambling this, refer to the advice above for altering to a Seismic Slam-centric build.
• Lut Socks — Knowing Might of the Earth will be your Haedrig's Gift set makes it very attractive to gamble on Boots, since Lut Socks are the solitary possible result at Level 1. They get even better if you chance into crafting Blade of the Tribes.

Active Skills
Seismic Slam Rumble Earthquake Molten Fury 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Threatening Shout Falter 3 Leap Call of Arreat 4 Battle Rage Ferocity
Passive Skills
Rampage Ruthless Earthen Might Boon of Bul-Kathos

At the 4-piece Might of the Earth bonus, you get a powerful incentive to switch into Earthquake-based damage dealing: Leap causes an Earthquake when you land. Coupled with the Leap cooldown-resetting powers of the 2-piece bonus and the Fury dump from Seismic Slam Rumble, you get a powerful, self-sufficient damage machine that can propel you through the in-game difficulties.

The 4-piece set bonus also provides you with the Iron Impact rune on Leap for free, so you should swap into Call of Arreat for the monster grouping convenience. Now that you have a way to reliably trigger Earthquake, you should swap the Seismic Slam-centric No Escape passive for the Fury generation from Earthen Might, which further feeds into your rotation.

It is not unreasonable to assume that at the 4-piece bonus, you have attained at least one additional key item for Leapquake Barbarians. If you follow the advice in our "Get the build started" section below, this item will likely be either Lut Socks or Band of Might. Here's how they factor into your beginner Leapquake build:

• Lut Socks allows you to cast Leap two more times before the cooldown timer starts, allowing you to spawn 3 free Earthquakes on top of the self-cast one you can trigger, as well as filling roughly half of your Fury reserve by itself (its entirety in practice, considering Earthen Might).
• Band of Might is exceptionally easy to get for the Cube, since it's one of the two Rings you can gamble at level 1 — you can simply make a quick Barbarian alt on the side if you did not chance into one with your main character. This legendary ring will provide you with massive survivability for the measly cost of using Leap at least once every 8 seconds, which you will be doing naturally with the rotation of the build.

Active Skills
Seismic Slam Rumble Earthquake Molten Fury 1 War Cry Veteran's Warning 2 Threatening Shout Falter 3 Leap Call of Arreat 4 Wrath of the Berserker Insanity
Passive Skills
Rampage Ruthless Earthen Might Boon of Bul-Kathos

At the 6-piece Might of the Earth bonus, you gain a massive damage increase to all skills related to the set. For this particular case, we assume a standard Earthquake-based build, since it's more straightforward than a Seismic Slam build, although the latter is a completely viable path to take depending on the items you luck into.

Skill-wise, you will not be making significant alterations from the 4-piece build; this is simply an augmentation of it, taking its natural strengths even further. If you happened upon an In-geom, you can consider using Wrath of the Berserker Insanity as indicated by the skill table above; otherwise, you can stick to Battle Rage Ferocity to have a more readily available and useful skill on your bar.

It is not unreasonable to assume that at the 6-piece bonus, you have attained at least two more crucial pieces for Leapquake Barbarians. If you follow the advice in our "Get the build started" section below, these items should be Girdle of Giants and Mortick's Brace. Here's how they factor into your beginner Leapquake build:

• Girdle of Giants fits into the Fury dump part of your rotation. It greatly enhances your Earthquake damage for 3 seconds after using Seismic Slam, weaving itself naturally in the dynamic between these skills.
• Mortick's Brace provides all the runes of Wrath of the Berserker, most importantly the damage increase of Insanity and the reduced damage of Striding Giant. With farming-synergistic sources of Cooldown Reduction like In-geom and Messerschmidt's Reaver, Wrath of the Berserker can become a readily available resource to Leapquake Barbarians, greatly improving the usefulness of this bracer.

In this section, we'll briefly go over how to kickstart this build into reality; which items you should aim for with priority when farming and gambling, and what is their relative priority for the functioning of this spec. Note that these suggestions are exclusively aimed at getting you up and running into endgame farming, and might not reflect the gear you need to wear for high-end Greater Rift solo or group pushing. This section also assumes a fresh Season's start, which usually is the point where most players work on assembling their first build with a particular set.

If the Might of the Earth set is part of the Haedrig's Gift for the Season, your simplest and most straightforward path to assembling the build is to complete the Seasonal Journey chapters up to Chapter IV. The Seasonal Journey chapters will gradually give you a complete class-specific set, giving 2-3 pieces for Chapters II, III and IV.

From the pre-game menu, choose and do this week's Challenge Rift. When successfully completed, this weekly event will grant you 5,1 million Gold, 475 Blood Shards, 370 Reusable Parts, 350 Arcane Dust, 125 Veiled Crystals, 35 Death's Breaths, and 15 of each Bounty cache material: Khanduran Rune, Caldeum Nightshade, Arreat War Tapestry, Corrupted Angel Flesh, and Westmarch Holy Water. This will allow you some early Seasonal leeway to extract and reforge items in Kanai's Cube, speeding up the assembly of this build with the items recommended below.

Having some materials at your disposal, either from farming or the Challenge Rift, is particularly important when you get duplicate pieces of your desired set. When you do, you can use Kanai's Cube Skill of Nilfur recipe (10x Forgotten Souls, 10x Death's Breaths, 1x Set item) to convert into another item from the same set. You should never salvage duplicate pieces of a desired set before you have it assembled.

In order to assemble a MotE Leapquake Barbarian, you should do the following.

• Gather the full 6-piece Might of the Earth set using the advice above, or by spending Blood Shards at Kadala. In order of gamble chance, you should spend for: Pants, Shoulders, Boots, Gloves, Helm, and Chest. A trick you can also use is to gamble for duplicate pieces with an easier gamble chance (i.e., Pants) and convert them into another piece from the same set using the Skill of Nilfur recipe in Kanai's Cube.
• Upgrade rare (Hope of Cain recipe in Kanai's Cube) Two-Handed Mighty Weapons to get Blade of the Tribes; this is a build-defining legendary weapon that increases Earthquake damage and provides two additional sources that trigger its effect from War Cry and Threatening Shout.
• Gamble Boots on a Level 1 Barbarian (either your starting character or an alt) to get Lut Socks. This is a crucial piece for Leapquake Barbs, allowing you to triple Leap before the cooldown triggers and enabling your whole rotation from the 4-piece bonus onwards.
• Gamble Rings on a Level 1 Barbarian (either your starting character or an alt) to get Band of Might, a massive source of damage reduction and a universally useful item for Barbarians. It is one of the two legendary Rings available to level 1 Barbarians, making the gamble significantly easier.
• Upgrade rare One-handed Swords to get In-geom; doing this on a level 1 Demon Hunter alt will improve your chances due to their lowest loot pool of legendary swords. In-geom greatly benefits early game Leapquake Barbarians, since it makes Wrath of the Berserker a much more readily available buff.
• Gamble or upgrade rare Bracers to get Mortick's Brace; this legendary piece gives you all the runes of Wrath of the Berserker, adding the toughness of Striding Giant and the sustain of Thrive on Chaos to the universally desirable Insanity buff, which we usually take on the skill bar anyway. As a bonus, gambling or upgrading this slot can yield Nemesis Bracers, which are a staple farming item for your Follower.
• Do Act I bounties to attain the act-specific Ring of Royal Grandeur from Bounty caches. This will be helpful either in completing the basic set bonus, or mixing other helpful legendaries in the build as described in the dedicated endgame Leapquake Barbarian guide. Bounties will net you craftable set recipes as well, so you will be killing two birds with one stone. Bounties will also net you Avarice Band (Act III), another farming-oriented staple for most builds and classes, this one included.
• While largely undesirable due to high costs, gambling or upgrading rare Jewelry is also possible; Convention of Elements, the Bastions of Will set ( Focus and Restraint) and the Endless Walk set ( The Traveler's Pledge and The Compass Rose) will all drastically improve this and other builds, with other standout pieces that can also substitute or be temporarily helpful in the face of Unity, or Oculus Ring and The Flavor of Time for your Follower.